Cancer Prevention Action Week in June put a spotlight on one of public health’s most stubborn problems: the gap between what the science says about cancer and what the public actually knows, including on alcohol and cancer.

Melissa Dando from the World Cancer Research Fund explains the scale of the challenge:

“Alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen - the same category as tobacco and asbestos - and it’s linked to seven types of cancer, but awareness in the UK is quite low.”

Sue Taylor from Balance in the North East points to a structural cause:

“You’ve got the positives vastly overplayed and the negatives underplayed - it’s bringing us to a perfect storm.”

With mandatory alcohol labelling on the horizon, both guests argue that public awareness campaigns, stronger online regulation, and government action are all needed to close the gap.

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